S is for "Sex & Suffering in the Afternoon"

This is my TRIBUTE to

"All My Children" & "One Life to Live"

A couple of months ago, a week after my birthday to be exact, 14 April 2011, my son called me on my cell.  I was at the grocery store with his sister, Emma.  Emma passed me the phone with a look on her face (like only Emma can) like is he *%#+ing with me, and said, "I don't think so...Well, Mum's gonna die when she hears this come out of YOUR mouth."  And she passed me the phone.

Evan said, "Are you sitting down?"

"No. I'm at Publix!  I'm not going to sit on the floor, but I'm hanging onto the buggy.  Just give it to me."

"Put your Mad Housewife wine back on the shelf.  YOU NEED VODKA!  They've cancelled 'All My Children" & "One Life to Live'.  I didn't want to be the one to tell you, but it had to come from someone you love."

"O!  You're a funny one today, Evan."

"No, go to the liquor store, BUY YOURSELF SOME VODKA, you'll see it's all over the internet and tv."

I didn't/couldn't believe it was true, but he's never insisted that I buy vodka before, so I put my Mad Housewife wine back and made a stop at the party store before I returned home.  Evan was right; vodka was the beverage of choice.

Over fifty years ago, a brand new phenomenon of sex and suffering in the afternoon had begun.  Yes, the muse of the soap opera was born on the radio.  Well, common knowledge allows for the inevitable fact that time makes change.  For example, people change, technology changes, consequently, soaps changed, too.  (Thus, radio changed to television ~ to VCR ~ to DVD ~ to cable boxes recording ~ to reruns on soap networks, not to mention after midnight that day on many internet sites.) 

I was thirteen when I began to watch the daily dramas.  It was 5 January 1970; I was at my Auntie Jo’s and she said, “Come on, Leelee, let’s watch the new shows on ABC.” I sat glued to the television eating her sugar cookies and drinking milk... And by the end of that winter break, I was an addict.

At that time, I used to sit silent under the lash regarding my obsession in daytime delights.  My avid addiction in the afternoon brought about much snickering, snooty, and snide remarks regarding my wayward ways. 

But all of that changed, too. I can’t help but to bring a toast to the development of “Peyton Place”, “Dallas” and “Dynasty”, moreover, changing, transforming serials into weekly evening television. Now, we even have “Grey’s Anatomy”, “Desperate Housewives” and “Brother’s & Sister’s”.

By the time I entered Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, (circa 1980) there were lounges set up for students to watch the ABC Soaps. You could schedule your classes around your favorites, and take a well deserved break.

Although, change is constant, the consistent strength of the daytime originalities I remain true, and will throw my hat into the ring for until the end of time!  Which to my total dismay, has come this month, with the end of “All My Children”.

Come on, if people can have their wings in flight, or cowboy & carrousels to round up their night life, why can’t I have my skillful semi-stock characters in my light life?  Why do they have to end?  They have been ridiculed for so long.  They perform both probable and improbable melodramatic feats and flights of fantasy or science fiction that are crucial to humanity as a whole.  And now “budget cuts” are their demise?

Every weekday ~ same time, same channel ~ millions of Americans tune into their favorite serials.  They watch the incredible lives of people they know and care about.  They deal with recognizable problems of our world as it turns and we all know it.  It’s a hypnotic therapeutic adventure.  In one afternoon, along with all the other Americans as I, we witness the credits of culture:

birth ~ death

murder ~ suicide

marriage

separation ~ divorce ~ marriage ~ separation ~divorce

marriage

adultery ~ fidelity

prostitution ~chastity

premarital ~ sex ~ teenage

miscarriage ~ pregnancy ~ abortion

rights to life

chauvinism ~ equal rights ~ chivalry

sexually transmitted ~ disease ~ cancer

gambling

kidnapping

chemical ~ addiction ~ alcohol

parent ~ child ~ abuse

racial ~ problems ~ relationship

wealth ~ poverty

selling your soul to the devil ~ winning it back again

all in the name of that circle we call

love ~ lust ~ life

&

Sex & Suffering in the Afternoon

Like a magnet, even the best of us with straight~laced Puritan values are drawn and enclosed into either a not particularly welcoming world or an eternal cherishing instant.  One of my favorite lines to this day was on "OLTL when Viki said,

"When I'm with Joe, I love Joe; and

when I'm with Steve, I love Steve."

In all honesty, how much more real can it get?

Two loves a one time, I totally understood the concept.

I was a young teen at the time..

The themes are always the same, but the plots change, and I love the plots.

You know how when your children are babies you can’t wait ‘til they walk and talk.  And when they do all you can say is, “Shut up!  &  Sit down!”  I add to that, “What have I created: 

Story I:

My oldest, Edie Marie, were at a grocery store, it was the late eighties.  This was right around the time when the “Soap Opera Digest” first came out.  She saw “Natalie/Janet-from-Another-Planet” (Kate Collins) on the cover.  She began to speak with the woman behind us about how Natalie was trapped in a well right now… and how no one knew where she was… but that was okay… because that is just pretend… and continued to tell this woman that my mum says that means she hasn’t signed her new contract yet, so we’ll find out in a couple of weeks if she signed it or not… you know, if she lives and gets out of the well, she signed it; if she dies, she didn’t sign it…. and how it will all turn out all right… because she’s not really down a well anyway… she’s the daughter of an astronaut… Mum says, he went to the moon…

Yes, the lady’s eyes rolled way back into her head; she may have been having an epileptic seizure.  I couldn’t have been sure at that point in my life.  I just bought my groceries, and went home and turned on my tv.

Story II:

Winter 2003, my twins, Emma & Evan, were nine years old.  Again we’re in line at the grocery store.  They see “Leo Duprey” (Josh Eye-Candy Duhamel), again, on the cover of “Soap Opera Digest”.  They’re reading the lead stories.  They don’t have inside voices.  As the entire store hears, “Mummie, mummie!!  This says, ‘Will Leo Return?’  Don’t those people know that he’s on a new tv show and in a new movie?  We think he’s not returning; he’s not signing his contract.  His vacation is over, and his contract is not open-ended anymore.”

My children know the parameters of monies.

Story III:

2003 again, after taking Evan to his annual eye exam, I came to realize that it really doesn’t matter if you turn your head or shut the bad parts off tv, when any child is watching something on the screen s/he sees and hears to well.

Evan, Emma and I picked Edie up after school.  We also, took Edie’s friend home.  And apparently, even though it was arranged for me to drop that child off, the doors were locked, and no one was answering the doors.

Evan clearly said, “Oooooo!  No body’s/bodies home, and they’re gonna’ get naked.!”

I brought this child home with us.

And Edie Marie turned to me, and with one question, put me in a place I have never been placed so accurately before.

“MUM!!  WERE YOU WATCHING SOAP OPERAS WITH THEM, TODAY?”

I humbly took fault with my addiction

And the first step

on the ten step self-induced plan was to:

GROUND MYSELF

FROM WATCHING MY DAILY DRAMAS!!!

The next day was Friday!

I DIDN’T WATCH ANY TV!

By Monday,
I felt I was cured!

© Copyright 1976-2011 Leslie D. Zenoni dba Coloured Pencils